


To Raise a Slayer

by poppycurls



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Blood, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e12 Helpless, Father Figures, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fix-It, Found Family, Gen, Giles as Buffy's Father Figure, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Other Characters & Episodes, One Shot, Post-Episode: s03e12 Helpless, Season/Series 03, found family trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29275251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppycurls/pseuds/poppycurls
Summary: Giles ends up taking Buffy to the ice show after all.Set immediately after Season 3 Episode 12 "Helpless."
Relationships: Rupert Giles & Buffy Summers
Comments: 13
Kudos: 23





	To Raise a Slayer

Giles avoids Buffy’s eyes the entire time he dabs at the cut on her forehead, alternating between staring just above her head to staring at the bowl of water on the table next to them. When he finishes, he stands silently and turns towards his office. Buffy glances over and looks at the dent in the wall next to his office door where she had thrown a book at his head only hours before. If she had been at full strength, and had her aim been true, she would have hit him and she might have knocked him out.

Somehow, the image of him crumpled on the ground didn’t seem as appealing anymore. She’s seen that enough recently. Giles comes back with a box of butterfly bandages, and he kneels down and begins dressing the cut, sticking the bandages on with utmost care. He still doesn’t look her in the eyes.

“Will I need stitches?” She asks, desperate to hear him say something. She’s still not sure how she’s supposed to be feeling about this, and his silence isn’t helping her come to any conclusions.

“Probably not,” he says, leaning back to sit on his heels. “There.” Giles closes his eyes, and Buffy is surprised by the sudden vulnerability. Giles looks exhausted, the purple bruise on the side of his face prominent and painful. She could still kick his ass if she wanted. It wouldn’t be easy, given her current state, but she could definitely do it.

Buffy knows she should call her mom and ask to be picked up, but she doesn’t want to be fussed over and berated and babied and complemented all at once. She had already gone home, entrusting Buffy to Giles and the other stupid fucking old British man. Joyce, though thankfully unhurt, had a nervous energy that Buffy wasn’t quite ready to face. Besides, Buffy still wasn’t quite over the fact that her mother had tried to burn her at the stake only the week before.

Although Joyce now knew about Buffy’s slayer duties, that had only made things more complicated, not easier. She tried so desperately to keep Buffy away from her duties, never understanding that they were a part of what made Buffy who she was and that she liked her job as a slayer. As much as she complained about it, Buffy liked feeling powerful, and more importantly she liked knowing that she was keeping people safe and protecting her friends. Joyce just didn’t seem to understand how much Sunnydale needed Buffy. Then again, Buffy supposed that her current stance on the slayer was better than her original stance, which had sent Buffy running away from a home she believed she no longer had.

After Buffy had come home, Willow told her about Giles’s numerous trips to find her. “He spent almost 2,000 dollars in plane tickets,” she can hear Willow’s voice telling her in the hushed awe she normally speaks with. “He was really worried about you, Buffy. Not about Sunnydale. About _you_.” Buffy can also hear Xander’s voice, sharp and teasing but with a slight pause that Buffy knows he adopts when he’s upset or scared but trying to pretend he’s not. “He sounded like he had been screaming for a while - you know how people’s voices get scratchy? Angel – I mean, someone had been torturing him. I had to half carry him out because he could barely stand. Good thing ole’ Xander was there, huh? Giles sure was happy to see me.”

Angel could walk her home. But he would ask questions about Giles and make well-intended but biting remarks, and Buffy wasn’t quite ready for that level of interrogation either. Besides, it wasn’t quite fair of him, when Giles had been the only one to support Buffy’s decision to keep seeing Angel and who trusted her enough to believe that Angel was back to his old self.

If Buffy’s dad had shown up, he could’ve taken her home. But he hadn’t. Buffy is brutally reminded of the day they all had to live out their worst nightmares. Buffy’s father had told her how much he hated her and how the divorce had been Buffy’s fault. (Even though Buffy knew this wasn’t true, his absence still made her think he didn’t want her, sometimes.) Willow faced her worst nightmare – public speaking. Xander, a knife-wielding clown. Giles, Buffy’s grave.

Giles still sits in front of her, eyes closed and breathing heavy.

 _You have a father’s love for the child_.

“I’m not going to slap you, you know,” Buffy says, voice sharp and unnaturally loud in the quiet of the library.

Giles’s eyes fly open, startled. “Oh I – I know. I mean, if you wanted you, you have every right to…”

Buffy watches him stammer and she softens. Slaying doesn’t seem so bad, especially if this is what a watcher has to go through. Well, ex-watcher. She stands up, but her muscles aren’t used to being so, you know, normal, and she pushes herself up too quickly and instead pitches forward. Giles rises to meet her with a startled “Buffy!” but when he grabs her arms to steady her she lets herself fall further and wraps her arms around him, pushing him back. He barely manages to keep them sitting upright.

“Are you alright?” he asks, his voice dripping with concern, and Buffy buries her face in the familiar softness of his dress shirt and tries not to cry. She fists her hands in the back of his shirt, determined not to let go. Suddenly, losing Giles seems unbearable.

She’s nervous that he’s going to push her away and make her drink water and do a concussion test or worse, call Joyce or Willow and tell them to pick her up, but he doesn’t. Instead, Giles lets out a soft and pained, “oh Buffy, I’m so sorry,” and he wraps his arms around her too and holds her.

That’s all it take for Buffy to start crying, and she when she starts she just can’t fucking stop. It’s her eighteenth birthday, and she’s exhausted and overwhelmed and she feels inexplicably lonely. The slayer is one lonely and hard job, and she was about to lose the only person she had thought would always be on her side. Giles had just been doing his job, like she always tried to, and this whole system had used them and fucked them both over. She should be partying and planning for college yet she’s sitting on the hard linoleum of a high school library at midnight, clinging to the best father figure she’s had since the divorce and crying like a baby.

Giles’s hands are warm and grounding on her back, and he whispers another broken “I’m so sorry” in her ear. Buffy isn’t sure if it’s about the past week or about everything he hasn’t been able to give her. No one seems quite so distressed that she’s not a normal teenage girl like Giles is, even though Giles was the furthest thing from a teenage girl possible and he didn’t understand half the things she complained to him about missing out on. He still wanted her to go to the Bronze and learn to drive and pig out on the couch watching rom-coms, even if he told her out loud that all those things were trivial. Buffy knew him well enough to recognize the slight pain in his eyes whenever he said that.

“Don’t be,” she mutters, embarrassed that she hiccups as she says this. “Just shut up.”

He does.

“Are you still going to stay as the librarian?” she asks after a minute of silence, interrupted only by her own sniffling.

“Buffy, I can’t shut up and answer questions at the same time.” Even though she can’t see his face, she can hear the slight smile. “Of course I will. I see no reason for me to leave.”

“Good. And you’ll still –“ Buffy pauses, unsure of how to phrase this question. She settles on “you’ll still talk to me?”

“Do you want me too?” Giles asks, slow and careful. 

“Yes,” she says, nodding vigorously into his shoulder. “Yes,” she says again, just in case he didn’t hear it the first time.

“Then I will.” A pause, then “and I’ll still look after you, no matter who this new watcher is. You can always come to me for anything, demonic or otherwise.”

She briefly hugs him tighter then lets go, satisfied with his answer. When she pulls back, she’s startled to see that his eyes are wet too. The lines on his face are more prominent and he looks much older than usual. Giles carefully takes off his glasses and wipes his arm across his face.

She stands, a little shaky, and she helps Giles up as well. Buffy heads to the bathroom, and by the time she’s done washing the mascara streaks off her face and fixing her hair she’s feeling a lot more composed. When she gets back to the library, Giles hands her a water bottle (thankfully no concussion test) and with another small smile he instructs her to drink at least half of it before he drives her home.

Buffy drinks just a tiny bit under half, just to spite him. She feels he deserves that at least. 

They drive home in silence, but when they pull up to the Summers’ house, Giles opens his mouth before Buffy can get out.

“I really am sorry-“ he begins before Buffy cuts him off.

“Giles, don’t. I seriously don’t care anymore. It’s okay. Life sucks and old British men in suits suck even more. Besides you, obviously. You don’t suck as much. You kinda suck a little, but I don’t hate you or anything. Although you know what else sucks? Crystals. If you bring one out again I will literally impale you with it. Which makes it sound like I’m still mad, but I’m not, I promise.” Buffy looks over at him, and she’s happy to see that he’s grinning at her, even if the bruise on his face and the wet spot on his shoulder still ruin the image.

“Will you let me finish, please? Buffy, I never, ever, intend to hurt you. I promise that you can trust me, especially now that I follow no rules and will do anything to protect you and your friends.”

“No rules? That’s not the Giles I know.”

“Yes, well. Some rules. What I’m trying to say here, Buffy, is –"

Buffy knows what he’s going to say before he says it. _You have a father’s love for the child._

“You know I never had any children of my own, for a variety of reasons, but just because I never have doesn’t mean that, well – You’re in no way expected to feel the same, and I don’t mean to replace - but you’re the closest thing to a – I mean, you’re like the daughter I-"

“Hey,” Buffy interrupts, saving him. “You’re lucky you didn’t raise me. I was a downright terror as a toddler.”

“I can only imagine.”

“Will you take me to the ice show?” Buffy blurts, unable to stop herself.

Giles looks at her, his smile now softer and more genuine. Apparently he had been listening when she told her how important it was to her. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I was sure when I asked before and I’m sure now.”

His voice is still soft, but his answer is steady and sure. “Of course I will.”

With that, Buffy opens the door and begins to climb out, noticing Joyce’s silhouette in the window.

“Oh, and Buffy?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what else sucks? Vampires.”

Buffy recognizes this as a peace offering, an invitation to keep things the way they were and to keep the sappy stuff under wraps. Buffy accepts it. “A shitty vampire joke? Giles, save the puns for the rest of us, please.” She laughs and closes the door.

They don’t bring the night’s conversations up again. Instead, Buffy greets him bright and early the next morning, slamming the doors to the library open and startling Giles from his position leaning against the table. She’s flanked by Willow, Xander and Oz, and they all chatter amongst themselves as Buffy marches up to Giles and sticks a ticket into his book.

“Tomorrow. 6:30pm. You’re buying all the snacks. And I want a lot of snacks.”

“I will buy you one snack.”

“You’re really going to skimp out on me on my eighteenth birthday? Jeez Giles, maybe I should ask someone else.” She doesn’t, of course. She turns around without waiting for a response and marches out with the same energy she had coming in. The rest of the gang wave at Giles and call their goodbyes, only half paying attention as they teased each other, before following Buffy out.

Giles takes the ticket and carefully places it in his wallet before returning to his book.

**Author's Note:**

> Some fun facts:  
> \- I started watching Buffy because of these two! I saw a gifset of sweet moments between them that was captioned with the "you have a father's love for the child" quote and because I love the found family trope and I already knew Anthony Head from Merlin that was enough for me to start watching!  
> \- I have searched and searched for good Buffy & Giles fics and while they exist, so many are of them having sex and I'm like y'all nasty!!! Giles is her dad!! He adopted the whole Scooby gang stop it!! But if you have any good Giles as a dad figure fics please rec them to me  
> \- I feel like we all collectively gloss over Buffy asking Giles to take her to the ice show! It's so important and it makes my heart melt. Joyce offers to take her and she says no, and Buffy had prepaid tickets so she could have taken any of her friends but she asks Giles specifically because it's a father/daughter tradition.  
> -This episode made me cry. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated. Stay healthy <3
> 
> TTFN, 
> 
> Nina


End file.
